


The Devil Made Me Do It (But I Also Kinda Wanted To)

by Zai42



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Broken Bones, Brothels, Eye Gouging, Forced to Watch, Hurt/Comfort, Improvised 19th Century Surgery, Knives, M/M, Murder, Strangulation, Torture, it's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:34:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25815115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zai42/pseuds/Zai42
Summary: Wilde and Grizzop have escaped from under Barret's thumb, but it hardly solves their problems.
Relationships: Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Vesseek, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31
Collections: "Working on the Name" Bar and Brothel





	The Devil Made Me Do It (But I Also Kinda Wanted To)

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in a weird, sprawling, collective-effort alternate universe, but I hope it stands on its own. The basic premise is Wilde and Grizzop both worked for seedy criminal underlord Barret Rackett and...now they don't anymore. (:

Barret was perversely gentle as he cradled Wilde’s jaw. “Don’t look at him, look at me.” Wilde forced his eyes away from Grizzop, bound and gagged and staring desperately back at him. Barret’s face was filled with soft, false sympathy, lips tugged into a pout. Wilde hated him, he realized. Hated him with something hot and vicious that he couldn’t keep behind his usual mask. Years’ worth of pent-up fury finally twisted across his features, and Barret saw it and smiled.

“Don’t make that face; you’re far too pretty for that.” He took one of Wilde's hands in his, stroked over the veins in his wrist. “Always so lovely and delicate,” Barret murmured, and Wilde realized what was about to happen the second before it did.

His index finger crunched when it broke, loud even over Wilde’s scream. “A pity,” Barret said, gripping Wilde’s wrist tightly to keep him from slumping to the floor. Over Barret’s shoulder, Grizzop was struggling madly; Wilde stared at him and braced himself for the next wave of pain. It didn’t come right away. “You were _mine,”_ Barret growled, yanking Wilde up against his chest, the fingers of his free hand digging hard into his cheeks. “Did you think you were walking out of this with that pretty face intact?”

_Now_ there was pain, his thumb this time, twisted until it snapped and Wilde choked down an agonized howl, refused to give Barret the fucking satisfaction. Barret dropped him this time, kicked him hard in the ribs on his way down, tangled a hand in his hair and jerked his head up hard enough that his neck popped. Wilde glared as best he could with his teeth gritted in pain. “I’ll take care of you, all right,” Barret muttered, letting Wilde drop to the floor. “No one breaks my fucking toys but _me.”_

Barret’s boot came down between his shoulderblades, and Wilde caught the gleam of the dagger Barret was so fond of doing knife tricks with. He tensed, waiting, but the cut he was expecting didn’t come. The scrape of Barret’s blade against his scalp made him cry out nonetheless. He spit curses as he was sheared in uneven strokes; the knife caught and drew a thick gush of head-wound blood, dark and hot. Barret, when he finished, kicked him again, then stood and watched with satisfaction as Wilde curled up, breathing hard. “Sorry yet?”

_“Fuck_ you,” Wilde hissed. It earned him Barret’s boot shoved up against his cheek, pressing him into the floor.

“Ungrateful prick.” Barret shifted his foot and spat, then rubbed his saliva into Wilde’s face with the steel toe of his boot. “You think that pretty pout of yours lets you get away with whatever you want. I didn’t ask for much. Just a little loyalty.”

Barret dropped into a squat and shoved Wilde onto his back, pressing a knee into his shoulder to keep him pinned; Wilde grimaced, his bones grinding together beneath Barret’s full weight. Barret twirled his dagger in one hand, then pressed the tip into Wilde’s skin just below his jaw, gliding it upwards in a jerking, irregular tug, slicing through his lips and over his cheekbone with painful intent. Wilde clenched his teeth around a ragged cry, clawing at Barret’s arms to no avail. Barret paused, admiring his handiwork while Wilde panted underneath him, then brought the very point of his knife to rest an inch above Wilde’s left eye.

“Tell me to kill the goblin and I'll let you keep the eye,” Barret said. “I can forgive this whole thing.” Wilde took in two shuddering breaths, then spat blood at him.

The pain was liquid and perfect, and Wilde’s voice cracked as he screamed.

His vision was so red that it was nearly black and he curled around himself, keening, both hands cradling his face. Above him Barret was laughing, and Wilde hated him, glaring wildly with his remaining eye through trembling fingers as Barret stood and watched him writhe in pain. His face _burned,_ with pain and with blood and with the unspeakable remnants of his eye, thicker than blood, slower to ooze down his face and through his fingers, and Barret was laughing and Wilde _hated him._

“I’ll leave you that one so you can watch your little goblin die,” Barret said, as if he were doing Wilde some noble kindness, and turned his back _like the stupid fuck he was._

Wilde launched himself at that back with a shriek, bearing Barret to the floor and tossing away his dagger. He heard Grizzop scramble for it but had no time to wonder if he managed to get his hands on it. Barret was bigger than he was, better fed, unhurt, and he managed to land a blow on Wilde’s broken hand. Wilde screamed, lost his grip, and sank his teeth into Barret’s arm when he tried to pin him down. It wasn’t much of an opening, but it was enough.

Fueled by years of anger and running on frantic adrenaline, Wilde slammed his head into Barret’s nose, felt it crunch beneath his skull and grinned, very distantly aware that he must look ghoulish. He hooked both hands around Barret’s throat and squeezed, bearing down with all his weight, using the heel of his palm to keep his broken thumb from moving too much. Beneath him Barret foamed at the mouth, digging his nails into Wilde’s wrists hard enough to draw blood, as if a little more blood would stop him now.

It took a surprisingly long time for him to die. Grizzop always made it look so easy.

When he couldn’t feel Barret struggling anymore, Wilde laughed, hysteria settling in where fury had been moments before. He slid to the ground and buried his face in his hands, cackling. He could hear Grizzop’s light footfalls approaching. He had gotten the knife, then. Good. Wilde peered at him through his fingers, watched him check Barret for a pulse then cut his throat, and Wilde knew Grizzop well enough to know that was no indication of whether or not he had found one. Grizzop looked up at him, and Wilde squeezed his eye shut. Gods, he hurt.

“Wilde - ”

“Don’t,” Wilde said into his palms, voice high and unhinged. “Don’t - don’t - don’t look, I - I - ”

Grizzop’s hands were not gentle when they curled around Wilde’s wrists. He jerked his hands away, cradled Wilde’s face between his palms, and pulled him into a brutal kiss, heedless of the blood - and worse - that Wilde could taste on his tongue. Wilde made a helpless noise into Grizzop’s mouth. “I’m _ruined,”_ he rasped.

Grizzop pulled back and met Wilde’s gaze with blazing eyes, mouth set in a determined line. “You’re beautiful,” he said fiercely. _“Perfect.”_

“...Perfect,” Wilde repeated dully. The pain that had faded while he had strangled Barret was creeping back in time with his pulse; Wilde realized he was shivering madly. “We - we need to leave,” he managed. “Grizzop, gods, they’ll kill us, we can’t stay here - ”

He tried to stand but his legs gave out beneath him; he went down onto his hands and knees, laughter bubbling up in his chest again, his vision going blurrier with tears and encroaching black spots. He felt Grizzop toss a strong arm around his waist and the thought of leaving him alone in this place, having to drag Wilde’s dead weight to safety, helped Wilde keep his legs somewhat. “I have a friend,” Grizzop was murmuring. “I - I think I have a friend. They can help us. Just hang on, please, Oscar...”

And Wilde was trying. He was. He made it at least out into the open night air, out from beneath Barret’s roof for the last time, before the red encroaching on his vision finally overtook him.

* * *

Vesseek was used to knocking in the middle of the night. It came with the territory. They had built a reputation for helping people, and people who needed help made a habit of finding them, and needing help tended to have an inconvenient schedule. So they were used to late night visitors.

They weren’t prepared for the person needing their help to be Grizzop. They peered through their curtains and it took them a moment to recognize him; his ears were down, flat against his skull, and his eyes were shadowed. He was covered in blood, most of it red, some of it green, both in enough quantities to be alarming; there was a figure slumped over his shoulders, far bigger than he was, unmoving. Vesseek threw open their door.

“Help him,” Grizzop begged, stumbling over their threshold. “Vesseek, please - ”

“Get inside,” Vesseek said urgently, and gathered both of them up in their arms as best they could, tugging them over to their couch, locking the door firmly behind them. The figure was a human, unconscious, drenched in blood and breathing in ragged gasps. The blood on his face was so dark as to be nearly black, matting in his hair, hiding most of his features. Grizzop had sagged against him, clinging to his hand. “I’m going to get supplies,” Vesseek said, and the look Grizzop gave them was so blank and haunted that they bolted, fetching their first aid kit in record time.

“Who is he?” Vesseek asked as they returned.

“He’s - we - ” Grizzop stood back as Vesseek approached, iodine in hand. “Barret’s dead,” he said, and Vesseek nearly dropped the bottle.

They stared down at the human and realized his eye was gone. Not just hidden beneath all that black blood - cut out, and cut out messily at that, thick transparent liquid seeping from his eye socket like tears. Vesseek swallowed thickly and steeled themselves. “All right,” they said. “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning. And help me sterilize a needle.”

Giving Grizzop something to focus on other than his companion seemed to help. He did as Vesseek directed him as he spoke, his voice going from panicked worry to cold monotone, and Vesseek found they preferred the panic. They cleaned away the human’s - Wilde’s - blood, wincing at the deep gash carved into his cheek, as Grizzop explained where he had been for the past eighteen months. How he had accepted Barret’s offer of protection on Vesseek’s behalf, how he had been assigned to protect Barret’s most prized possession - the man currently laid out on Vesseek’s sofa. How they had spent a month hating each other, until -

Grizzop paused, watching Vesseek attempt to clean out the empty - mostly empty - _dear gods -_ eye socket. “I killed one of his clients,” Grizzop said, and a bit of emotion had crept back into his voice. “And then I killed more of them.” Vesseek ran a cotton swab along Wilde’s eye socket. “He - Barret found out.”

It felt as if there were a gap there, some detail that Grizzop couldn’t bear to speak. Vesseek let it go. They could guess. They wouldn’t press if Grizzop didn’t want to bring it up. They began to twist a length of gauze into something to pack into the empty socket. “Men like Barret,” they said, then stopped. “You’re certain he’s dead?”

“Yes,” Grizzop rasped.

“Well,” Vesseek said, “good.”

They lapsed into silence, then; Vesseek bandaged Wilde’s eye as best they could, then carefully began to stitch up his face and set his hand. “Let me take a look at you,” Vesseek said, when they were satisfied there was nothing else to do but wait.

“I’m fine - ”

“You’re _bleeding,”_ Vesseek snapped. “Just let me see.”

Grizzop went still, watching from up close as Vesseek disinfected and bandaged his wounds. They touched the bruise beneath his eye. “You’re shivering,” Grizzop said.

Vesseek pulled him into a hug. Grizzop went tense in their arms, his breath hitching, and didn’t relax until Vesseek let him go. “You’ll stay, won’t you?” Vesseek asked desperately. “I have room. You’ll be safe here.”

Grizzop wouldn’t meet their eyes, but nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “If it’s all right. As long as you’re safe.”

Vesseek managed a weak smile, but Grizzop’s posture, the stiff way he carried himself, the grim set of his face - it all added up to a bleak picture, even without Wilde bloody and unconscious at their side. Whatever Grizzop wasn’t telling them about what life had been like under Barret’s control - well, Vesseek had known, hadn’t they, that it must have been horrible? They had protested when Grizzop had left.

Not enough, apparently. They would have to make up for it now.

* * *

For a month, it was quiet. The usual stream of people were in and out of Vesseek’s door, looking for somewhere to stay, a decent meal, someone to help them disappear, and Vesseek helped as best they could. Eventually Grizzop stopped jumping at every knock on the door.

Wilde, after a few days of a worrying fever, was recovering nicely. Awake, he was charming and laid-back, but Vesseek could sense the artifice in his demeanor, the thin layer of geniality stretched over a deep abyss. Every now and then, when they went to check on his recovery, they would stumble across him staring darkly into a mirror, the one good side of his mouth pulled into a frown, but he always became flippant and affable when Vesseek made their presence known.

Grizzop - Grizzop was difficult. Vesseek hadn’t known Wilde, had no sense of who he had been before Barret had sunk his claws into him, but Grizzop had been their friend. They had known him, before, when he smiled easily and wore his heart on his sleeve. Now he was cold and distant, his ears always kept low against his skull, his expression blank as if he were worried someone would see weakness there if they looked. He kept mostly to himself and kept himself armed at all times - Vesseek suspected he slept with a dagger beneath his pillow.

“I’m sorry,” Grizzop said abruptly one night. He was chopping vegetables for dinner, his back to Vesseek.

Vesseek paused, glancing over at him. “What for?” they asked carefully.

Grizzop sliced a potato viciously in half. “I’ve seen how you look at me,” he said. “I know you think...I know that I _am...”_

“Grizzop - ”

“I’m broken,” Grizzop said. His voice was calm and even, but the potatoes were mauled with unnecessary violence. “And I’m sorry.”

“Grizzop, I - ”

There was a knock at the door. Vesseek hesitated; it came again. “Go,” Grizzop said, still expressionless. “It’s fine.” Vesseek went.

The man at the door peered down at Vesseek when they opened the curtains. “They told me you could help,” he said, when Vesseek cracked the door open. “I’m looking for friends of mine.”

Alarm bells sounded off in Vesseek’s head. “No one’s been here for weeks,” they said. “What did your friends look like? Maybe I know where they’ve gone.”

“Might I come in?” the man asked, and didn’t wait for an answer, kicking the door open, the security chain snapping. Vesseek scrambled backwards and turned to run, but the man hooked an arm around their neck.

_“Grizzop!”_ they cried, and then there was pressure at their throat, painfully tight.

“Rude to lie to me,” the man said. “And everyone said you were so - ”

Something barreled into the man’s legs and Vesseek was dropped, coughing, sucking in frantic breaths. A big hand closed around their arm and for a moment they panicked, until they were pushed back behind Wilde, his face grim, a dagger in his hand. Vesseek glanced up and Wilde held them tighter. “Don’t look,” he said darkly, but Vesseek had already seen the expression on Grizzop’s face as he drove his knife into the man’s neck. There had been fury there, yes, and hard determination - and a wild, frantic glee, his teeth bared in a rictus grin. They turned away, shivering, and Wilde held them against his hip and watched.

* * *

Grizzop was silent that night, curled up against Wilde’s side, every muscle in his body tight as steel wire. Wilde’s breath was soft against his ear when he spoke. “We should leave,” he murmured.

Grizzop shifted to look at him, touching his jaw, just beside his scar. “You’re not better yet,” he said, but there was no force behind it.

“I’m not going to put your friend in danger,” Wilde replied, his own hand coming up to fold over Grizzop’s. “Not for my sake. It seems a terrible way to thank them.”

Grizzop hesitated, stroked his thumb absently over Wilde’s cheek, then nodded. “Tonight?”

“It seems best.”

* * *

Vesseek knew, when they woke, that something was wrong, and wasn’t surprised to find Wilde and Grizzop gone. Still, they worried.

They hoped they had left under their own power, but the thought that they _hadn’t_ gnawed at them. The front door had been repaired and reinforced, and neither it nor any of the windows had been broken, but the possibility remained, however distant.

They stood in their vacated bedroom, wishing they had at least left a note, and resolved to send word to Zolf, asking him to let them know if he heard any news.


End file.
